Djibril Diop Mambéty's Cinema of Possibility
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HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER 2019 2 DJIBRIL DIOP MAMBÉTY’S CINEMA OF POSSIBILITY DJIBRIL DIOP MAMBÉTY’S september 6 – september 9 CINEMA OF POSSIBILITY 4 WEEKEND MATINEE SEPTEMBER 6 – SEPTEMBER 9 september 7 – november 16 6 THE B-FILM. LOW-BUDGET HOLLYWOOD CINEMA 1935 - 1959 september 13 – november 25 CALENDAR 21 SEPTEMBER 22 OCTOBER 23 NOVEMBER 24 THE TOUCH OF MEMORY. THE FILMS OF SOFIA BOHDANOWICZ september 15 – september 16 25 GODFREY REGGIO, CINEMATIC SEER september 21 – october 14 28 AN EVENING WITH MARGARET HONDA september 27 Djibril Diop Mambéty HYENAS THE MCMILLAN-STEWART FELLOWSHIP: Djibril Diop Mambéty (1945 - 1998) has been described as an actor, orator, composer DIEUDO HAMADI and poet, deservedly, besides a legendary African filmmaker and—thanks in part to his september 28 – october 5 prénom—an “Angel.” He was born near Dakar in Kolobane, Senegal. “All my films speak about the city I was born in,” he’d once claim, “from the outskirts to the capital itself, be- 30 VITALINA VARELA cause the road from your birthplace to the capital is always the path of a desire called september 30 – october 7 emancipation.” He studied theatre at first, working on the stage after graduating from act- ing school, before losing his job at the Daniel Sorano National Theatre and then teaching 31 CINEMA OF RESISTANCE himself the “Seventh Art.” Ultimately, he joins an amazing cinematic pantheon. After the late september 30 – november 24 Pan-African greats Ousmane Sembène and Med Hondo, as well as Haile Gerima and Sarah Maldoror, this “Prince of Kolobane” came to innovate filmmaking for all Africa and the world 32 UNCOMFORTABLY YOURS. with his signature mix of wild narrative style, rich traditional symbolism and virtuoso editing THE FILMS OF ALEX ROSS PERRY technique with impeccable political commitment. october 18 – november 16 For some, his “magnum opus” would be Hyènes, a stunning, sardonic tale of human consump- tion and World Bank colonialism (“a structural adjustment plan for souls and values”). His 35 FOUR FILMS BY FRANÇOIS OZON career on celluloid began at the age of twenty-three with two shorts: Contras’ City (1969) october 19 – november 15 and Badou Boy (1970). The latter won the Silver Tanit award at the Carthage Film Festival. However, it was his debut feature that took the world by storm: Touki Bouki. Its formal sophis- 36 THE TRANSCENDENT CINEMA OF DAVID BROOKS tication and Afro-cosmological audacity captivated audiences and critics alike. A peerless october 20 – october 28 audio-visual experience ready-made for the global migration drama of today, it earned major awards at Cannes and the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. Next came an 38 MAKE MY DAY. THE CINEMATIC IMAGINATION OF enigmatic hiatus. Mambéty did not release another work for two decades, except one docu- THE REAGAN ERA mentary short: Parlons Grand-mère (Let’s talk, Grandmother, 1989). This is no trivial moment in october 31 – november 30 his catalogue. For, against the basics of film school orthodoxies, Mambéty highlights a core antagonism between “Grandma” and “grammar” (the two terms homonymous in colonial 40 MATI DIOP’S ATLANTIQUE French), to insist upon the importance of making a film language of one’s own for African november 18 Printer: TCI Press cinema: “Grandma wants us to reinvent grammar every time…. She tells me: ‘Go bash its face in … because all this space belongs to you, my grandson.’ Grandma has asked me to always reinvent her stories. To never stop recreating it to ensure her perpetuity.” He loved to All text written by Brittany Gravely and Haden Guest unless define cinema as magic and dreams, possibility and small wonders, something only possible otherwise noted. for him with its necessary reinvention – “as long as you’re not its slave.” Mambéty would On the cover: one of many arresting images from Godfrey Reggio's reappear in 1992 to reinvent his own voice for Hyenas, a voluptuous epic and sort of al- Privacy Campaign project, p. 27. legorical sequel to Touki Bouki, which was well-nigh Hip-Hop in cuts and pace, while Hyènes flows so slowly and marvelously, like Big Momma’s molasses. harvard film archive staff director collections archivist film conservation Herb Nipson founding curator Louis Chaisson Haden Guest Amy Sloper assistant Katie Soule Vlada Petric James “Bo” Clay Robert Vaszari Sean Sprecher Max Gorodentsev programming assistant collections manager special thanks Stefan Grabowski Karin Kolb Mark Johnson financial associate theater managers Verjana Abazaj Dan Kearney Regina Pellicano Amanda Bristow Anto Astudillo Asma Khoshmehr publicist/designer film technician/ Steven Brown Alexandra Bandow Emilie Liu Brittany Gravely head projectionist projectionists Andrew Gerzon Zuzanna Belska Shiying Meng John Quackenbush Scott Norwood Kevin Monahan Lisa Brown Soojin Park David Pendleton 1964 - 2017 2 On July 23, 1998, his body succumbed to lung cancer—only 53 years old. Yet this could not stop the magic of Djibril Diop Mambéty. He’d been preparing a striking trilogy of short films, entitledTales of Ordinary People (or, Contes des petites gens) as a whole. It includes Le Franc as well as La Petite Vendeuse du Soleil, which is to say, The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun, a posthumous marvel likely to steal every spectating heart. Touki Bouki and Hyenas were to comprise two parts of a dramatic series on “Power and Madness” themselves. There is also his virtually dateless collaboration with René Vautier’s Le Glas, in which Mambéty narrates poetry in homage to three Zimbabwe African People’s Union martyrs over a Black Panther Party music soundtrack. His spectacular legacy lives on and perhaps strongest in the country of his birth. He actually named Waru Studio in Senegal, the youthful art-lab base of Fatou Kande Senghor’s current Wala Bok imaginings in Pan- African music, television and film. Waru translates as “Wonderment.” What’s more, for the Dakar Biennale of 2018, Djibril Dramé and the slammeur “Minus” paid homage to the cinéaste by restaging his film-work in a photography-installation laying out twenty scenes from Badou Boy and Touki Bouki. Mambéty’s belief in Africa’s masses of was hardcore; and so is their everlasting belief in Mambéty. Hence, speaking of them and Hyenas, he maintains with that voice of an “Angel”: “If we are able to demystify wealth, the future of Africa is brilliant…. The future of Black people resides in its mission that goes back to the age of the pyramids and spreads far beyond. We do not cease to produce beauty. We only need be wary of the pathetic contagion of Western ‘Enlightenment,’ which is really not illumination at all, but simply electricity.” – Greg Thomas, Depart- ment of English & Africana Studies Program, Tufts University), author of The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power (2007), Hip-Hop Revolution in the Flesh (2009), and The Immortal George L. Jackson (forthcoming) Film descriptions by Brittany Gravely, unless otherwise noted. friday september 6 at 7pm himself, Dramaan, whose sacrificial status allows him Djibril Diop Mambéty THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SOLD THE SUN friday september 6 at 9pm to palpably comprehend the injustice. Vividly illus- saturday september 7 at 7pm trated in a Touki Bouki-esque magical reality with out a better existence for them both. As the only sunday september 8 at 4:30pm potent iconography—Ramatou’s golden prosthetics female newspaper seller, she encounters constant monday september 9 at 7pm are particularly striking—Hyenas both encapsulates obstacles along the way, yet reacts by simply stand- ing up for herself and others. Nonchalantly fighting HYENAS (HYÈNES) and transcends the complexity of the postcolonial for equality and justice, Sili’s courage and resilience Both an adaptation of Swiss playwright Friedrich African experience. In the words of film scholar are depicted with a mix of joy and hardship, but Dürrenmatt’s satire The Visit (1956) and a spiritual Clyde Taylor, “[Hyenas] is singular in leaving no no saccharine. The second in his unfinished Tales of sequel to Touki Bouki, Mambéty’s rich allegory un- ideological or sociological space for any viewer to Little People trilogy after Le Franc, this film—likeHy - folds in the village of Kolobane, the director’s birth- hide, African or foreign, black or white, female or enas before it—mixes realism with allegory, taking place and that of the wealthy, worldly Linguère male, in witnessing the moral crisis of contemporary a “small” story and making it as powerful as the sun. Ramatou, who left it long ago, forced into a life humanity from an African viewpoint.” of dissolution and suffering that happened to pay Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty. With Mansour Diouf, Ami Diakhate, Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty. With Moussa Baldé, Lissa Balera, Djibril Diop Mambéty Aminata Fall off financially. Her much-anticipated return elicits Senegal/Switzerland/France 1992, DCP, color, 110 min. Wolof with Eng- Senegal/Switzerland 1999, DCP, color, 45 min. Wolof with English an exultant response from Kolobane’s desperate lish subtitles subtitles populace, whose dreams of opulence suddenly af- flict them with a selective memory and a malleable $5 WEEKEND MATINEE ADMISSION LE FRANC moral compass. It is Mambéty himself—as Rama- saturday september 7 at 3pm In “a time of uncertainty”—quoting the radio an- tou’s newly appointed Chief Justice—who outlines THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SOLD THE SUN nouncement inviting people impoverished by the the part local shopkeep Dramaan Drameh played (LA PETITE VENDEUSE DE SOLEIL) CFA franc’s devaluation to try their luck playing the lottery—Mambéty went beyond mere observation in her downfall, fatally sentencing him while grant- Mambéty describes what would be his final film and elevated his anarchic and rebellious vision by ing the town riches beyond their wildest dreams.